11Synonyms found for egg

Word Origin & History

egg mid-14c., from northern England dialect, from O.N. egg, which vied with M.E. eye, eai (from O.E. æg) until finally displacing it after 1500; both are from P.Gmc. *ajja(m), probably from PIE *owyo-/*oyyo- "egg" (cf. Goth. ada, Ger. ei, O.C.S. aja, Rus. jajco, Bret. ui, Gk. oon, L. ovum). Caxton (15c.) writes of a merchant (probably a north-country man) in a public house on the Thames who asked for eggs:"And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges, and she understode hym not."She ...did, however, recognize another customer's request for "eyren." Egg nog is Amer.Eng. c.1775, from nog "strong ale," an E.Anglian dialectal word of unknown origin. Bad egg in the fig. sense is from 1855. To have egg on (one's) face "be made to look foolish" is first recorded 1964. Egg-beater is from 1828; slang sense of "helicopter" is from 1937. Eggshell as emblematic of "thin and delicate" is from 1835; as a color term, it dates from 1894.